Garden Planner, July 13

Jul. 12, 2013

Written by

Stephanie Bruner

Special to the Register

This week

• Your garden should get about one inch of water a week, either through rain or through irrigating. It’s better to soak plants thoroughly once a week, rather than a light sprinkling every day. Deep watering encourages roots to grow downward, which makes plants more resistant to drought. You can set a few tuna cans around an area where you’re running the sprinkler to measure how much water it’s delivering — run the sprinkler for 15 minutes, then measure the water in a can and multiply by 4 to see how much water you’re getting per hour. Remember that sprinklers will deliver different amounts to different areas, depending on the sprinkler and the number and height of plants in the way of the water.

• If trailing annuals like bacopa or petunias get leggy and stringy, cut back the long stems (snip to just above a pair of new leaves) to coax them to branch out.

• Fertilize container plantings every 10 days or so — watering leaches nutrients out quickly.

This month

• Keep weeding! It’s easiest to weed in areas you’ve just watered. If you don’t have much time, at least pull or cut the tops off weeds to prevent them from setting seeds. You haven’t completely solved the problem this way, but you keep it from being worse next year.

When you pull or cut weeds with seedheads, put them in a lawn waste bag right away — if you leave them sitting on the ground, many weeds will spill the seeds right there.

• Keep deadheading your annuals to keep them blooming the rest of the summer.